Mickey M'Grew

Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)



It was just like everything else in life:
Something outside myself drew me down,
My own strength never failed me.
Why, there was the time I earned the money
With which to go away to school,
And my father suddenly needed help
And I had to give him all of it.
Just so it went till I ended up
A man-of-all-work in Spoon River.
Thus when I got the water-tower cleaned,
And they hauled me up the seventy feet,
I unhooked the rope from my waist,
And laughingly flung my giant arms
Over the smooth steel lips of the top of the tower --
But they slipped from the treacherous slime,
And down, down, down, I plunged
Through bellowing darkness!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
106

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCCDEFGHIJKLHMNO
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 625
Words 122
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 17

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. more…

All Edgar Lee Masters poems | Edgar Lee Masters Books

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